Bronze ring engraved with Lighthouse of Alexandria found in sunken royal palace

For centuries, anyone hoping to picture the Lighthouse of Alexandria has had to make do with fragments: worn coins, a handful of mosaics, and the impressions of travellers who saw it before earthquakes toppled it. Now a new image of the ancient beacon has emerged, and it fits on a finger.

Underwater archaeologists have recovered a bronze signet ring from the sunken island of Antirhodos, engraved with a multi-tiered structure identified as the Pharos, according to the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM). The institute made the find public on Wednesday. The island where it surfaced once sat inside the royal precinct of Alexandria's Portus Magnus, the city's Great Harbour.

Egyptian officials are treating the object as a genuine first. The Supreme Council of Antiquities says no seal ring carrying an engraved image of the lighthouse had ever been found before. Dr Hisham El-Leithy, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, described the discovery as exceptional.

The engraving resembles the way the lighthouse appears on coins struck in Alexandria during the 2nd century AD, which suggests the ring likely dates to around that period.

A signet ring was a working instrument in the ancient world. Pressed into wax or clay, it served as a signature, proof that a document or shipment carried someone's authority. That is why the place where this one turned up has caught researchers' attention.

Antirhodos was no ordinary stretch of shoreline. It held a royal palace, and Franck Goddio, the French explorer directing the excavation, has emphasised that recovering the ring from such a historic centre of power adds to its significance. The team believes the find may indicate that the palace was still being used for official business at least into the 2nd century AD, possibly including duties connected to the administration of the lighthouse.

The ring is the headline item from a much broader season of diving. The joint mission, run by the IEASM alongside Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, is working across four locations in the Eastern Harbour: a temple to Isis, the palace and its western platform on Antirhodos, the remains of a monumental sarcophagus, and the Timonium, a palace complex associated with Mark Antony.

Alongside the ring, divers have recovered a collection of ceramics, including everyday utensils, tableware and amphorae, spanning roughly eight centuries from the 4th century BC to the 4th century AD. Fragments of ancient glassware were also found.

Goddio's team has been surveying Antirhodos since 1992 and has documented a Ptolemaic palace associated with Cleopatra VII.

Built in the early 3rd century BC on the island of Pharos, the lighthouse rose above the harbour and guided sailors along a dangerous coastline. It stood for well over a thousand years before successive earthquakes brought it down. Many of its remains lie on the seabed near the Qaitbay Citadel, though a separate project, known as PHAROS, lifted 22 large blocks from the site in 2025 to help reconstruct the monument digitally.

The ring now adds a new and unusually personal piece to the record of how the ancient world saw one of its greatest landmarks.

When this season's work in the Eastern Harbour concludes, the mission is expected to continue its underwater investigations in Abu Qir Bay.